


conjure up a fiction

by angelheartbeat



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst, Character Study, First Kiss, Internalized Homophobia, Kinda?, Light Angst, M/M, Self-Hatred, Vodka, jus generic gray fic stuff u kno?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 10:45:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16785403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelheartbeat/pseuds/angelheartbeat
Summary: Their relationship has changed drastically, since they were kids. Their relationship has changed, but they haven't.





	conjure up a fiction

**Author's Note:**

> oh man that summary is the shittest thing in the world good job if u clicked on this after that
> 
> title is from modern day cain by i dont know how but they found me (incidentally a song that highkey makes me think of mac)
> 
> this is probly ooc

Charlie has seen Mac cry a total of four times in all the years they've spent together.  
  
Once, when they were 6, and they met for the first time. Charlie found Mac crying behind a bookcase, on their first day of school. No one liked him, so he was exempt from the games. Charlie was too. They'd been inseparable ever since.  
  
Once, when they were 14, and Mac's dad went to prison again. Mac hadn't cried the first time, but when they stood on the porch and watched the police car speed away, Mac's dad inside it, Charlie held Mac's hand as it shook and pretended that he couldn't hear his sniffling.  
  
Once, when they were 23, and Mac shattered the bones in his leg falling out of a window. He'd been half delirious with pain when Charlie sprinted downstairs to his side. He cried all the way to the hospital - silently, stonefaced, not batting an eyelid when Charlie said they were dating just so they could ride in the ambulance together. Privately, Charlie thought it was one of the few times Mac had actually been badass.  
  
And now, when they're 40, and Mac is sat at the bar, drinking vodka straight from the bottle. Charlie isn't sure what to say. What are you meant to say, when your best friend is in tears? Whats the status quo? They don't exactly have the most open of relationships. Their friendship is schemes, and booze, and hatred, and throwing each other under the bus. Their friendship makes Charlie sad. They used to be so close, the ultimate duo, but now they yell and hit and plot - all things they've always done, but now they lack the undercurrent of love that they'd established on day one. They used to have each others backs. Maybe that means Charlie should comfort him.  
  
"Hey," he says instead. Mac doesn't turn around. He mumbles a hello. "You alright, man?"  
  
"I'm fine," Mac says roughly, but his shoulders are hunched under some invisible burden, something heavier than Charlie can seem to comprehend. Charlie sits down next to him. They pass the vodka back and forth. "Just tired."  
  
"Bullshit."  
  
"Maybe."  
  
The bar smells like smoke, and beer, and a hint of blood. The bar smells like Mac's dumb colognes and Dee's shitty perfume and Frank's ass. The bar smells like old dead people and peanuts. The bar smells like home.  
  
"How do you keep going, Charlie?"  
  
That's unprecedented.  
  
Charlie shrugs. "I guess I just... do. Dunno, bro. You just gotta push past the shitty bits. Glue helps. So does booze."  
  
"Glue's gonna kill you one day, man."  
  
"Its good for now, though. Who cares about the future?"  
  
Mac rubs a hand across his face, dragging tear tracks across his cheeks, and Charlie suddenly notices just how dark his undereyes are. He looks like a panda, or maybe a raccoon. It looks like smudgy eyeliner, or like he's been punched one too many times and the shadow's stuck around. They never used to be that dark.  
  
"Did you really always know I was gay?" Mac asks. His voice cracks on the last word.  
  
Charlie considers lying to him. He's lied to him a thousand times before, and not once has it set off a moral alarm, but this feels different. He can't lie about this. Mac lies about this to himself enough. "Yeah."  
  
"Why didn't you tell me?"  
  
"We did. A lot. You never listened."  
  
"Guess I never wanted to."  
  
"Yeah. Guess so."

They drink in silence a lot now, when they're alone. It's like they've run out of words, or they can't find the right ones. There's a lot of unspoken things in the air.

"Maybe I should have listened."

Charlie almost laughs. Yeah. Yeah, Mac. If he'd listened to them all those years ago, maybe he'd have spent his life happy and content, rather than angry and frustrated and repressed. That's a plausible theory, for someone like him, a life like his.

"Your life wouldn't be better," Charlie says, and its harsh but Mac needs to hear it. "Your dad would still go to prison. You still wouldn't go to college. You'd still buy a shitty bar with us. You just might be more open to the gay bar scheme."

"I don't think I'd hate myself as much," Mac says quietly, staring down the neck of the vodka bottle. Charlie shuts up. This is more open than Mac's ever been, than the two of them ever are. "Maybe I'd have a nice boyfriend, y'know? He'd like church, and karate, and he'd be badass but he'd think I'm the most badassest guy ever. But whatever, right? Its never gonna happen."

"That would just be a clone of yourself, man."

"I'm not badass, Charlie. I can't even do karate."

"How drunk are you?"

"Why's that matter?"

"You'd never admit that if you were sober."

Mac chuckles humourlessly. "I'm drunk enough to know how dumb I've been. And that I won't remember this tomorrow."

"Sometimes forgetting is worse."

When Mac turns to look at Charlie, he's staring down at the bar with something dead behind his eyes. A rush of something in Mac's chest objects to that look, but he doesn't quite know what to do about it. It feels wrong to do anything. His brain is fuzzy.

"Oh," is all his stupid mouth can conjure. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren is whining.

There's a very defined space between the two of them, and never before has it felt quite so deafeningly huge. That makes no sense. Space can't be deafening, and yet somehow, it is. Somehow, the few inches of ring-stained wood and years of emotional distance are drowning out the rest of the world, leaving just Mac and Charlie in their own pocket of reality. Just the two of them, spinning away from whats real in a bubble of their own imagination. There's a roaring in Mac's ears. He thinks he might be too drunk. That never happens.

Then Charlie coughs, and the spell is broken.

"Get some sleep," he says to Mac, pushing the vodka back. "You look like shit."

Mac leans forward and kisses him.

Its brief. Charlie barely has time to process it before Mac's pulled away again, chugging desperately at the bottle like it could wipe away what he just did, but Charlie doesn't know why he would want it to.

"Oh," his stupid mouth says, just like Mac's. The police siren is still going.

"Yeah."

They look at each other.

"What time is it?" Charlie asks, voice hoarse with a strain he can't ease. Mac blinks.

"I dunno. Late."

"Oh."

They look at the bar.

Then they kiss again.

This time its desperate, breaching that distant divide that formed between them, stitching up old wounds and patching old tears. Mac's lips taste like vodka. Charlie's sure his do too. Mac smells like his dumb colognes. Mac's all that Charlie can feel.

When they break apart, they remain in each others space, breathing in the same oxygen and exhaling confusion. Everythings changed, in the span of a few seconds. Everythings changed, except it hasn't.

"I don't wanna forget this, bro," Mac whispers, and they're close enough together that he feels safe saying it. No one else will pry in on their conversation. It's just him and Charlie, in a bubble of their own imagination. He can't tell whats real.

"I can remind you," Charlie offers.

As the night drags on, they kiss and drink and laugh like they're kids. Like nothings changed, even though everything has. But everything hasn't, and they're here. They're real. They're disconnected from reality. They're in their own hell. They're at home, they're in the bar. Mac cries again, silently, even as he laughs. Charlie doesn't think he knows he's doing it. He doesn't point it out. That would bring them back down to earth.

When Mac wakes up in the morning, he thinks maybe he's glad he didn't listen all those years. Maybe. Maybe he'd be somewhere else if he had. But he wouldn't want to be, because he wakes up wrapped around Charlie, and some miracle seeps his memories back into his head, and he smiles.

Distantly, he can feel that his burden is still there, weighing down on his shoulders like the mass of a thousand sins, like the world is upon him. 

But for now, he puts that aside. Who cares about the future?

**Author's Note:**

> wow that was all over the place
> 
> i dont know what im Doing. *janet voice* kill me kill me kill me
> 
> leave comments or ill send in the raptors


End file.
